If you weren’t among the small but hardy group of paddlers yesterday, you missed more birds than I’ve ever seen in the Okefenokee Swamp on a sunny cold December morning. We did draw the winner for the kayak raffle; we’ll announce that once we get a return telephone call.
Before even entering the Stephen C. Foster State Park, we saw a great blue heron, the bird on the WWALS banner, plus a wild hog. Inside, we saw Continue reading
It’s not just GE and Siemens that are “experiencing disruption of unprecedented scope and speed,” power plant builder Fluor finds “The challenges we have experienced over the last two years on gas-fired power projects are inconsistent with the results we have historically achieved.” Maybe you should have bet on sun and wind power, Fluor, Siemens, and GE, instead of fracked methane and nukes.
Photo: Fluor web page on Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
Copenhaver Construction, Inc., 8 August 2017,
Problems on three gas-fired power plant projects with fixed-price contracts forced Dallas-based Fluor Corp. to book a $124-million charge in 2017’s second quarter.
CEO David. T. Seaton says Continue reading
You can see on these maps that the Suwannee River Basin is massively agricultural, except where it’s forestry or swamp or other wetlands. Thus it’s no wonder that most of the nitrate runoff problem here is due to agriculture, as shown in the Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs).
WWALS Science Committee Chair Tom Potter points to this Global Croplands map to illustrate the BMAP issues. The question remains of whether agricultural best management practices as advocated in the recent BMAP meetings will be sufficient to deal with the problem, considering they haven’t decreased it in the past decade.
Global Croplands About: Continue reading
You may have seen this kayak at the Brooks County Skillet Fest, the Berrien County Harvest Fest, the Alapaha Station Celebration, the Hahira Honeybee, or Suwannee Hulaween, and now there are only a few days to get a raffle ticket for it, before we draw the winner 9AM this Sunday in the Okefenokee Swamp on the monthly WWALS paddle outing.
You can put your donation in online and get your kayak raffle tickets. All proceeds go to support the work of WWALS Watershed Coalition, because Malibu Kayaks generously donated the kayak.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Paddling down the Withlacoochee River from Nankin to Mozell Spells, the remains of the Valdosta Railway Bridge mark on the right bank the north end of the Four Freedoms Trail, one of the few hiking trails on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT):
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, 9 July 2016.
The Four Freedoms Trail in Madison County was constructed as a joint effort between Continue reading
Sabal Trail apparently doesn’t know cattle.
The pipeline company claimed they know restoration, but that’s not what the ground looks like now, with sparse vegetation and erosion. They say they love wildlife, but they drove off a heron and who knows what else. They’re driving down property values. What are those bubbles? Which milepoint is which, anyway? Janet Barrow lives in Marion County, but she also reports on Citrus County. For 54 pages, with a summation.
For the rest of FERC Accession Number 20171120-5026, “Comment of Janet L Barrow under CP15-17, et. al.; A Citizen’s Supplemental Information Regarding Sabal Trail’s October, 2017 Monthly Report” on the WWALS website, follow this link.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
EPA doesn’t even remember when it sent its own greenhouse gas (GHG) comments to FERC, forgets that it already told FERC nevermind, and now says, despite copious evidence filed by Senators, professors, Riverkeepers, and environmental organizations from multiple states as far away as Colorado, that FERC’s incorrect and inadequate Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statemen (FSEIS) rates “Lack of Objections or “LO””.
This latest EPA letter is dated November 20, 2017,
but FERC didn’t inform intervenors about it until today, two weeks later.
The EPA letter claims:
The EPA commented on the FEIS on January 25, 2016. In those comments the EPA provided several recommendations including that the FERC consider a detailed evaluation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in future analyses.
Yet FERC’s Docket CP15-17 shows no comment by EPA in January 2016. It does show this same G. Alan Farmer, Director, Resource Conservation and Restoration Division, EPA, wrote a letter to FERC filed 1 December 2015 as Accession Number 20171201-0034 (see also WWALS blog post), in which he said nothing I can see about greenhouse gases, but he did basically say “nevermind” to EPA’s extensive letter of October 26, 2015, filed as Accession Number 0151102-0219 (clean text on the WWALS website), which October letter did include: Continue reading
Pretty low at Hagan Bridge, the start of the WWALS outing down the Withlacoochee River to Franklinville, February 2, 2018.
I took these pictures Saturday a week ago, November 26, 2017, when the Skipper Bridge gauge read Continue reading
Not just one week anymore, more than two weeks: for seventeen days or more than half a month Sabal Trail shipped no gas, and it’s at less than ten percent of its stated operational capacity today.
Sabal Trail Operationally Available and Nominated Capacity, 2017-06-14 to 2017-12-02, graphed by WWALS from Sabal Trail’s FERC-required online reports.
Also, on October 30th Sabal Trail went down to 14 Million Dekatherms a day (MDTH/day) nominated capacity out of 779 MDTH/day operationally available capacity.
Both that and the drop to zero on December November 14th were shortly after Sabal Trail
ramped up nominated capacity.
Did you bust something, Sabal Trail? Continue reading
Especially scared of Sierra Club’s DC Circuit Court win against FERC and Sabal Trail. He said the “sea change” in sophistication of the opposition reminded him of the No Nukes movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Maybe he forgets: we won! And solar and wind power are already winning against pipelines.
John Siciliano, 30 November 2017, Washington Examiner, FERC chairman takes a break from discussing coal plan to slam pipeline protesters,
There has been a “sea change in the identity, volume and goals of stakeholders participating in our proceedings, as well as in the nature and tone of the rhetoric of those who oppose pipeline projects.”
Adding to the national activist groups are the Continue reading